Customer Reviews

Latitude Zero: Tales of the Equator

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A thoroughly enjoyable collection of tales across the equator. Any historical 'travelogue' afficionado should read this. A quick glance at any globe and you might think: "well, there's not much landmass there, so there's bound to be a lot of seafaring tales". Not true. Confessionably, the book is split 'tween Africa, the Amazon and a dip into the Indonesian Archipelago but each story is paced sufficiently to be readable at twenty minutes sittings. Ideal, as I found, for that train journey or even on a beach. Not that it's beach material.
It is written with a faintly humorous tone, doesn't take itself too seriously and comes across more as a group of tales told round a campfire about mysterious lands. Its main result is that it leaves you desiring more, so I'm off to look up more titles by these authors, having piqued my interest...

For Latitude Zero, Gianni Guadalupi and Anthony Shugaar have put together a collection of short historical essays recounting the exploration of the equator. The accounts are organized somewhat chronologically. Following a brief introduction to the ancient folklore, the authors tell some entertaining stories of the Spanish conquest in South America and their search for the mythical city of gold, El Dorado. The narrative then jumps to the English exploration of central Africa. Finally, the tales turn to Magellan and his successors' adventures in the East Indies.

The interconnecting theme of these tales, besides the equator, is the humor that can be found in the recurring naive arrogance of the West in its dealings with non-European peoples. The 16th century Conquistadors come off the worst. At least Richard Burton et al. tried to color their exploration of the upper Nile and the Rift Lakes as geographical science.

Guadalupi and Shugaar have produced a well written and interesting light read. The sole short-coming of their volume -- filled with place names -- is the absence of useful maps.

A simple, slim volume with just enough historical(?) anecdotes to entertain. Don't look for any real history here; its purely for amusement. Unfortunately, I was put off on the second page of the introduction by a glaring error the editors should have caught. The author mistakenly claims "the equatorial sun stands still, straight overhead" which, of course, is nonsense. The sun passes over the equator only twice a year - Mar 20 (2009) and Sep 22 (2009). Otherwise, it is moving daily either north to the Tropic of Cancer or south to the Tropic of Capricorn due to the earth's 23.5 degree tilt - which is why that wide swath around the earth is called "the Tropics". Gianni compounds his error by claiming it twice more in the book. Naturally, when one encounters such a blatant error at the beginning of book, it casts doubt on the veracity of the remainder. All that aside, I enjoyed it for what it was.

I love this book. One of the best I've read in a long time. Stories are educational, fantastical, entertaining, and based on documented fact and research!
If you are interested in the history of colonies & cultural conflict along the equator, and want to better understand the sociological, anthropologic underpinnings and political/cultural histories of countries in Africa, Asia, and South America - and you also want a really fascinating read, then this is the book for you!

The tropics have always fascinated European explorers with tales of monsters and incredible nature. In this book, the authors tell the stories of a few handpicked explorers of the tropics.

The stories are divided among continents:
1. In South America, we have Orellana (first man down the Amazon), Aguirre (insane explorer in the Amazon), Raleigh (Brit up in Guyana) and Condamine (the French measurer of the Earth).
2. In Africa, Livingstone, Burton, Speke, Conrad, among others.
3. In Asia, Magellan (first around the world), Stevenson (of literary fame), and Brooke (the white Raja).

These are just short stories, of maybe 5-15 pages per explorer, and the choice of explorers is not necessarily the best, given the limited space in the book.

If you're into "interesting" history, this book is for you. The format of the book is interesting - many small vignettes grouped logically. The authors have done an excellent job.